


If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

by effing_gravity (Malteaser)



Series: Principality of Gays [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Other, Queer Guardian Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Queer Guardian Demon Crowley (Good Omens), Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malteaser/pseuds/effing_gravity
Summary: After Armageddon Armageddidn't, Crowley and Aziraphale get together. Aziraphale is delighted to share the life he's been living as Soho's guardian angel, and Crowley is delighted to learn of this jealously guarded part of Aziraphale's life. Now, if only he could shake the feeling that Aziraphale's own hard-won sense of identity would be in some way negated by the fact that Crowley isn't, strictly speaking, a 'he' all the time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Principality of Gays [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663042
Comments: 19
Kudos: 182
Collections: Good Omens Kink Meme





	If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a kink meme prompt: "This can be pre-relationship or established, both would be interesting. (A bit of self-projection here as well, to be honest.)
> 
> Crowley is openly genderfluid/non-binary, but since Aziraphale is Kinsey Six Big Gay he (a) tries to present male as often as possible because gay = into guys = not into women, and (b) feels like Aziraphale wouldn't like him if he presented as female. If they're not in a relationship, perhaps Crowley feels he has no chance with Aziraphale because he already knows Crowley isn't strictly male 100% of the time. If they are in a relationship, perhaps Crowley tries to go as long as he can ignoring the side of himself that feels female/nb/not-male, anxious that Aziraphale will be less attracted to him if he lets that out.
> 
> Eventually something has to give. Perhaps it's Crowley just giving in one day and presenting female, terrified of losing Aziraphale's affection but unable to repress it any longer, or perhaps Aziraphale himself asks Crowley why he seems to be presenting male for so long without change. Would like them to have a grown-up conversation about this, ending with Aziraphale reassuring Crowley that he loves him/them/her no matter what, and that it's more important for Crowley to live authentically than anything else."

Crowley probably wouldn’t have cared so much if it hadn’t been so obvious how important it all was to Aziraphale. Heaven, Hell, Wherever, he might not even have cared so much if it hadn’t taken him by _surprise_.  
  
It did, though. And what was truly infuriating was that in hindsight it was really, really obvious.  
  
He’d come to Crowley with a thermos full of holy water having heard about his ‘caper’ on the day homosexuality was decriminalized in England. The day in 1954 when he’d called up Crowley for no apparent reason, just wanting to talk. The one corner of his shop that was well-lit, welcoming, and full of contemporary books. That discreet gentlemen’s club where he’d learned the gavotte. All those weddings he would bless that never seemed to take place in churches. How Brother Francis always put in for time off in late June or early July. _Oscar bloody Wilde_.  
  
The one that Crowley really kicked himself over was 1985. Aziraphale had called a meeting on a bus, told him that he’d been put on probation and they probably shouldn’t contact one another until sometime in the next decade, and oh, could he borrow that coat? His miracle privileges had been curtailed, and he had a funeral to attend and nothing suitably dark to wear to it. Crowley had shrugged off his coat, miracled it to suit Aziraphale a bit better, and left it behind when he got off at the next stop.  
  
“I wanted to put that coat in an art exhibit,” Karen told him. “He wore it to every funeral, fundraiser, and protest. It was practically a gay icon in and of itself.”  
  
It was only now, a good thirty-five years down the line, that he’d learned the reason for all of that: AIDS. Aziraphale had found a way to technically circumvent the Heavenly mandate against curing plagues, and instead of letting him try it Heaven had nearly clipped his wings over it.  
  
“That’s how I figured it out,” Karen continued. “I came in- oh, some time in the early aughties. 2003, I think? And I suddenly realized that I’d known him for twenty years and he hadn’t aged a day. Literally.”  
  
“Well, you got there before I did,” said Ronnie cheerfully. “I first came running in here from a police raid in ‘39, and we’d been decriminalized before I realized anything was off.”  
  
That, more than anything, was an indication of how serious this was. People knew. Aziraphale _let_ people know.  
  
Not everyone, of course, and not the whole story. But they knew he didn’t age. They knew he wouldn’t die. They knew he wasn’t human.  
  
And even to people who didn’t know, he wasn’t just a pillar of the community, providing shelter and reading for every gay with a sad story about being turned out from their homes and away from their religions. He wasn’t just their friend, who had helped them with a rough patch in their relationship or a crisis of faith and identity. He was family. He was their blessed _Auntie Ezra_.  
  
“I’ve got to admit, I’m having a hard time swallowing how easily you swallowed this,” Crowley told them.  
  
Ronnie waved a hand lazily in through the air, wrist bent. “I’ve had decades to get used to it. Most of us have.”  
  
“Honestly, back in the day, it was kind of comforting,” said Jerome. “I knew there would be at least one person around to make sure I got a decent funeral.”  
  
“I still think it’s weird,” said Jagitha. “But I’ve only known since 2012, or so. How about you, Anthony? When did you find out about Soho’s gayngel?”  
  
Aziraphale was making himself busy with the tea. Their eyes met briefly as he assembled everyone’s preferred drinks into the hodgepodge of novelty mugs he’d collected over the years. Whatever story Crowley wanted to tell, he’d back him up, no question.  
  
Crowley was mostly curious as to how they would react to more of the truth.  
  
“I’ve known him for over six thousand years,” Crowley admitted. “So… I guess I learned about Soho’s gayngel when he moved into Soho in 1800?”  
  
“You brought me chocolates for my big opening,” Aziraphale called out, smiling with fond nostalgia.  
  
“And flowers,” Crowley added. “I brought you flowers too.”  
  
“That’s right,” Aziraphale said, still smiling. “I think I had those pressed, too. They’re around here somewhere…”  
  
Before he could wander off in search of them, Ronnie leapt to his feet and punched the air with surprising vigor for a man who’d given his age as _I stopped counting after one hundred._  
  
“Yes! I knew it!” he shouted. “You _are_ the bloke Auntie Ez has been hung up on for ages!”  
  
The thing was… that was a perfect opening for it. _Well, I’ve only sometimes been a bloke, through the ages._ It wasn’t like anyone here was going to judge him. There were people in the room who would give their gender as ‘no’, or ‘depends on whether Venus is in retrograde’ or even ‘I’ll have one of each, thanks’, which is pretty much how Crowley would describe his.  
  
Except, well, he’s not just standing on his own now, is he?  
  
The first thing Aziraphale had done upon returning to his bookshop was to scrub the sigil required to make contact with Heaven from the floor. The third thing he’d done was to kiss Crowley. In between that, the second thing had been to slap a big old pride flag up in the window over the insane business hours he’d written up on a drunken dare from Crowley. He’d had it hidden away in his desk for Someone only knew how long, just waiting for the moment it might be safe to come out.  
  
Aziraphale was a gay man. It wasn’t something Heaven would have approved of- not because Heaven cared about being gay, but because Heaven wouldn’t approve of an angel with any kind of sexuality. A gender they could almost accept, as a metaphor that made talking to humans easier, but a _sexuality_? Too dirty. Too corporeal. Too human.  
  
Aziraphale had one anyway, though.  
  
If there was one thing Crowley was properly demonic about, it was rebellion. He knew that this was one of Aziraphale’s, and not a small one either, not like sushi, or musicals, or even his beloved books. It probably wasn’t as big as stopping Armageddon, or walking into Hell wearing Crowley’s skin, but it was definitely up there with giving away his flaming sword, or entering into an Arrangement with a demon.  
  
Then again, it was different from all of those things too. Aziraphale picked over those other rebellions- wracked himself with anxiety over them, second-guessed his every decision. Here, he was comfortable. He was _relaxed_.  
  
Crowley wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize that.  
  
“Am I seriously the last person on the planet to realize that you were in love with me?” Crowley asked instead.  
  
“I didn’t think I was being subtle about it,” Aziraphale said apologetically as he went around bringing everyone their tea.  
  
“Not everyone is able to sense love, angel,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes. “Some of us need words.”  
  
“I love you,” Aziraphale said, pressing a kiss to the top of Crowley’s head as he passed him by on his way to give Kaishu their tea.  
  
Crowley didn’t flail and barely even blushed. After some months of that sort of thing, he was beginning to stop being so shocked by it.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. I love you too, you great bloody bastard,” he groused.

* * *

At the time he really didn’t think it was going to be a problem. He was a man-shaped being of the world more often than not because more often than not it was easier to be man-shaped than any of the alternatives, and he liked it when things were easy. Most of the time, he only changed because it was required for the job (like Bush-era appointees would hired a manny!), or because it was fun (he’d spent most of the 60s and 70s bouncing around all over the place, gender-wise, because there were so many barriers being broken down and there were so many things being done that you just couldn’t _do_ properly if you were always one thing or another).  
  
Most of the time. Sometimes, he got… itchy, for lack of a better word. He started looking to change things- hair, style, glasses- and finding it to be not _enough_ , and then he started not quite recognizing himself in the mirror. Around the time he started having a moment of disconnect when hearing other people talk about him as a man, he generally realized that it was time to shed his skin and try being something else.  
  
The last time that itch had become unbearable was 1919, and Crowley had just stayed a woman all the way through from then until 1933. Which was an excellent decision, honestly, the 1920s were great for dressing up fancy, drinking heavily, and giving the car salesman who wanted your husband’s signature on all the papers before letting you buy your own blessed Bentley nightmares _for the rest of his life_. England was home, still, even after everything, but there had been so many places to travel to: Colombo, New York, Havana, Singapore, Casablanca, Berlin... Shame about the destruction of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, and the whole _Kinder, Küche, Kirche_ thing, really. It’d really killed the good vibes that the Wiemar Republic had had going for it. By then, the itch had long since been soothed.  
  
So, pretty much a century, then, since he’d last gotten so itchy that he couldn’t stand being a man. And, of course, he’d scratched since then, during those hippie years, and again as Nanny Ashtoreth. He really, really didn’t think he was going to have a problem with staying a man, not for a long while yet, and particularly not when he was doing it for Aziraphale.  
  
And he was doing it at least partly for Aziraphale from pretty much the word go. He was just so _happy_ , to be able to share the life he’d been leading as Ezra Fell with Crowley. He’d been doing a lot of good here in Soho, and he’d been doing it as the self he was most comfortable being- a frumpy bookseller who got hilariously bitchy when annoyed, liked to putter around at odd hours, drink expensive wine, and eat rich foods, and was as queer as a nine bob note.  
  
And Crowley was really happy to have that all shared with him. He was particularly fond of the part where it turned out that he was practically an urban legend: the mystery man dear old Auntie Ezra had pledged his heart to.  
  
They had all these scraps of stories that they’d stitched together, that group of people who still all met in Soho even though it had been gentrified to Heaven and back. They got a surprising amount right: the sunglasses, the hair color, the Bentley, the immortality. Most people thought that maybe he worked for the mob, or some other kind of organized crime, which was kind of funny. Aziraphale had definitely tangled with that sort more often than Crowley did, if only in the form of scaring them away from the prime real estate his shop occupied. Ronnie was a staunch proponent of the theory that he worked for Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which at least had been sort of true during the years of WWII, even if there’d been a His Majesty at the time and Crowley had gotten everyone to start calling themselves the Baker Street Irregulars on a lark.  
  
Did Ronnie, who also gave his age as _the second (no, third, sorry Anthony) oldest homo in England if not the world_ , leap to his feet and punch the air again when he learned this? Yes, of course he did.  
  
Of course, they all missed certain facts. Like, the part where he was a demon, or the part where he wasn’t always a man, for example. Crowley had no intention of informing them of these facts.  
  
When he’d made that choice, he hadn’t thought it would be hard. So of course, he has to make it harder on himself: keeping his hair short, changing his wardrobe as little as possible, keeping his body in exactly the same shape it had been when Aziraphale had first kissed him, bits and all.  
  
That was the first thing he let go. It was just a reflex, really. Anything sort of reproductive-system adjacent required effort to give it shape, and he was really, really, _really_ used to changing that up whenever he felt like it. So, one day, he put on a pair of jeans that was both very tight and a ‘woman’s fit’ and just kind of unthinkingly gave himself a vagina to make wearing the thing easier. He hadn’t even realized that was down there until Aziraphale was on his knees before him.  
  
“Oh, uh.” That was as far as Crowley got in his offer to change genitals, before Aziraphale’s tongue was in him, and that was the end of his delusions of being capable of coherent speech for a time.  
  
“You’re-uh. You’re really good at that,” Crowley said, when his ability to delude himself returned.  
  
Aziraphale hummed against the inside of his thigh. “Thank you. It’s been a while, I’m glad to hear that I’m not terribly out of practice.”  
  
“Oh?” Crowley replied. “You’ve done this before?”  
  
Aziraphale hummed again, this time pretty much against his labia. “Yes, well. James Barry was hardly the first man of his kind- though he may have been the rudest.” Aziraphale frowned a bit- Crowley could just make out the pucker of skin between his eyebrows- before turning his face upwards and looking at him with a far too innocent expression. “Come again?”  
  
“Ssssure,” Crowley managed to hiss, which was all the encouragement Aziraphale needed to dive right back in.  
  
He wasn’t sure why there was a little niggling disappointment when he looked back at that moment, considering the very non-disappointing multiple orgasms involved. He’d already known that plenty of men- human men- walked around with a vagina between their legs. _He_ walked around with a vagina between his legs about as often as he walked around with a penis, no matter what gender he was feeling at the moment. Of course Aziraphale- who was an actual celestial being in addition to being Ezra Fell, self-appointed guardian angel of all peoples queer and gay- was _familiar_.  
  
Actually, no, he was sure why. It was because Aziraphale wasn’t being familiar the way he needed him to be familiar. He wasn’t giving him any of the signs he needed in order to be told _Yes, actually, I’ll still be attracted to you if you’re not a man, I’ll still love you._  
  
Honestly, he would have taken some kind of vague _Oh, I’ll get used to it, if you decide it’s time to stop being a man for a bit._  
  
But, of course, he’d already decided to be a man. He’d committed. So he ignored that tiny little niggling disappointment that probably should have been called what it was: an itch.

* * *

Crowley was a bit shocked to learn, after moving into the bookshop, that it really was more than a place for Aziraphale to store his collection of rare misprints, advanced reader copies, and first editions. For one thing, the angel did a brisk trade in the restoration, authentication, and appraisal of old books, which was apparently how he actually made his money. For another, quite a few graduate students had come to the conclusion that this was a kind of reference library: they couldn’t take out the books, but they could, with the proper equipment and Aziraphale’s supervision, read them and use them as sources in their own work.  
  
And, of course, A. Z. Fell & Co. was also Auntie Ezra’s place. If not quite _the_ beating heart of the gayborhood, it was definitely qualified to be called the right ventricle. Sometimes, Aziraphale would host auctions for the Terrence Higgins Trust, or offer the use of his kitchen for The Food Chain. There was, to Crowley’s absolute delight, a never-ending supply of condoms and sex education pamphlets tucked away behind his non-misprint Bible collection. A basket of pins- the various pride flags, red ribbons, and some pronouns- appeared next to the till shortly after the apocalypse. Most of the books Aziraphale sold were from the one brightly-lit contemporary corner, all of them in some way queer. Sometimes he even gave them away, relying on the near-universal rudeness of refusing a gift to ensure that someone ended up going home with something that would make them feel less alone, or more seen, or whatever it was they needed. Crowley popped out the first time he saw that, found an absolutely insufferable Christian book store, and stole a bunch of dust jackets from it. He offered them up as camouflage, the next time Aziraphale had to give a book away.  
  
“I suppose I should thank you for that,” Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes.  
  
“No need, Auntie Ezra,” Crowley teased. “I can tell from the way that you’re blushing that you like it.”  
  
Aziraphale who had gone a bit pink, grew even pinker. “You’re about six seconds away from being called Uncle Anthony by the whole of the neighborhood, I hope you realize.”  
  
Uncle didn’t fit, just, instinctively, being called Uncle didn’t _fit_. But of course, Aziraphale wasn’t expecting him to do anything but splutter, and put it all down to discomfort with being part of a family, rather than discomfort at being _him_.  
  
It was kind of funny. He minded the implication of sharing custody of Auntie Ezra’s various neplings a lot less than he minded that thing he wasn’t thinking about, and he was pretty sure that was down to the idea of having a home here with Aziraphale starting to feel a little _safer_.  
  
No one from Downstairs was checking up on him. He didn’t need to have an Evil™ justification at the ready for his every action. He could just _be_. He could even do something nice and call it that, every once in a while. It was...nice.  
  
People were in and out of the shop, at times. There were regular ‘family reunions’ for the people who were in the know about the two of them. Ronnie stopped by every so often just to chat. On occasion, there would come a knock in the night, and they’d open the door to find some poor young thing with a small knapsack on their back or even less and nowhere to go. A pot of tea and a few phone calls later, and they were generally on their feet again. Sometimes when things were really bad- Luka hadn’t even been wearing _shoes_ when he showed up, for the love of whoever it was that might give a shit- Crowley sat them down and got a few details: a home address, a telephone number, a place of employment, even a full name was generally enough to go on.  
  
He had worked for Hell for six thousand years. You couldn’t really survive that long at a job if you couldn’t find something satisfying about it, and Crowley had learned to get his giggles in, watching people squirm on hooks of their own devising. He could do _plenty_ with a little bit of identifying information.  
  
Aziraphale had to know about it, but he never said anything, and Crowley never brought it up.  
  
There was plenty else to discuss, after all. They had to figure out some way for Crowley to yell at his plants without upsetting Aziraphale in the process. They had to find some way of meshing their routines- or, well, Aziraphale’s routines with Crowley’s complete lack thereof- without driving one another completely nuts. Aziraphale had a barber that he had a standing appointment with, and a manicurist, and a tailor, and he attended a _church_ of all things besides.  
  
“You’re an angel. What do you need a church for?” Crowley asked. “If you need to talk to God, can’t you just-” He almost gestured out to where the sigils for contacting Heaven used to be inscribed on the floor, before he remembered that Aziraphale had scrubbed those off, first thing.  
  
“I could redraw them if I felt like having a chat with Gabriel,” Aziraphale said with a snort. “Or the Metatron. I don’t feel any particular urge to do so.”  
  
“Right, no. I don’t suppose you do.”  
  
“Besides,” Aziraphale added after a moment. “I’ve been attending the Metropolitan Community Church of London since it was the Fellowship of Christ Liberator. I’m hardly going to stop now.”  
  
_Metropolitan_ made Crowley think of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but a quick peek at google set him straight: it was a vaguely Protestant church, founded in New York to be a ministry of gay people for gay people.  
  
Of course it was. This was, apparently, a huge part of Aziraphale’s life that he’d only ever let Crowley or Heaven have glimpses of before. And now Crowley was invited to the party, and Heaven would just have to contend itself with Aziraphale making the first letters of each line of his miraculous expense report spell out I’M GAY in Enochian.  
  
Aziraphale was probably not doing even that much for Heaven, really, but Crowley found the idea entertaining.  
  
Anyway, it wasn’t like Crowley was going to go to church, so he was home on Sunday mornings, including the Sunday morning when there was a knock on the door. _If this is another kid who has had their shoes taken away from them and had to shimmy down the drainpipe to get away from their parents_ , he silently promised himself _I am going to get downright nasty._  
  
He hasn’t really cut loose lately, with the evil. It wasn’t the sort of thing that had ever really bothered him before, but he was going to go ahead and say that was what was bothering him anyway. Maybe he _would_ feel better, after it was done. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but something violent and destructive seemed like it would fit the bill. Maybe something with guns, again. Not that anyone would get hurt this time either, necessarily, but there was something about the way a bunch of people who had made the decision to shoot one another dealt with the weight of that choice that was just _satisfying_ in the worst possible way.  
  
And then he opened the door and saw that it was Kaishu.  
  
“Oh! Anthony!” Kaishu said, clearly trying not to sound disappointed. “Is Ezra home?”  
  
“Nope,” Crowley replied. “It’s Sunday, he’ll be at church for a bit. What’s up?”  
  
Kaishu’s face wrinkled. They twisted a little bit, before finally answering in a rush “MymotherissupposedtocallandIgaveherthenumberofthebookshopand-”  
  
Crowley was holding the door open wider and waving them inside from the word _mother_. “Family shit. It’s shit,” he said with perfect understanding “Do you want tea or something stronger?”  
  
“Tea to start with,” they replied. “Let’s see how this conversation goes.”  
  
The conversation didn’t start for another half an hour later. There was a ring on the phone. Kaishu answered, and then had a conversation in what he was pretty sure was Cantonese.  
  
It didn’t seem like the painful reunion or recrimination Crowley had thought it was going to be. No one shouted, there was no crying, mother and child just chatting. Kaishu even smiled sometimes before saying something cheerful- though it was generally a very fake looking smile.  
  
They said their goodbyes and hung up before the hour was over.  
  
“How do you feel about port wine?” Crowley asked.  
  
“I’m not really sure what that is and how it differs from regular wine, but I’m open to the experience,” Kaishu replied.  
  
Crowley poured, and they sat there for a moment in silence. He was just about to ask how they were liking _the experience_ when they spoke. “How much of that did you understand?”  
  
“Basically nothing,” Crowley assured them. “Cantonese, right?”  
  
They nodded.  
  
“I learned a bit off some mariners in Liverpool during the Second World War, but they were _mariners_. It was mostly swearing, and I would guess that it would all sound really old-fashioned nowadays.”  
  
“I’m surprised,” Kaishu replied. “Ezra’s is really good.”  
  
“It’s not like we were together the whole time,” Crowley told them. “We were in Kaifeng in the early 1640s together, but they weren’t speaking Cantonese there and I haven’t been back to China since. I never even made it as far out to the coast, _ever_. But _Ezra_ went out to actual Canton at some point after that, which is where he picked up the language, I guess. Is that still there? Canton?”  
  
“Yes. I’m from there,” Kaishu told him. “We call it Guangzhou now.”  
  
“Oh,” Crowley said. “Good to know.”  
  
“My mother thinks I’m a lesbian,” they said, holding out their cup for a refill.  
  
Crowley poured them a refill, and listened.  
  
“It’s not,” they said, and then stopped. “Look. What do you know about the state of LGBT rights in China?”  
  
“Basically nothing,” Crowley admitted. “I’m going to guess from the look on your face that the answer is ‘not great’.”  
  
“Not great,” Kaishu agreed. “It isn’t Chechnya- it’s not even illegal to be gay, technically- but it’s not great.”  
  
They toyed with their glass a little. “And, so. You know. My mother thinks I’m a lesbian. And she loves me and she’s worked really, really hard to be able to accept me, in spite of everything she ever heard about being gay, and it’s brave and I’m proud of her for it.”  
  
“And you’re not a lesbian,” Crowley pointed out. In addition to not being a woman, they were currently at the center of the sort of polycule that would make an incubus’ head spin: with women mainly, and a few other nonbinary people, and one man.  
  
“And I’m not a lesbian,” Kaishu agreed. “I mean, I thought I was, when I left home. So it’s not like I’ve been lying to her, exactly. I just haven’t told her the whole, updated truth. I don’t know how to tell her that truth, or even if I should. What if that’s a bridge too far, you know? I don’t talk with my father anymore, I’m pretty sure he told my brother not to contact me and he doesn’t disobey, so. She and her twice a year phone calls are all I have left.” They sighed deeply and drained their glass. “I don’t want to lose her, but I don’t like that I can’t tell her things about me and about the people I love.”  
  
“That sucks,” Crowley said, after a moment of trying and failing to come up with something more profound to say. “Do you want to switch to rum?”  
  
They laughed. “You know what? Yes. Yes I would.”  
  
By the time Aziraphale returned home from church, they were both decently drunk, and were alternating between Kaishu explaining Chinese texting abbreviations to him, and Crowley explaining why Li Zhicheng was a complete disaster of a human being to them. Neither of them mentioned the lying thing when they told Aziraphale what the occasion was.


End file.
